{"id":7772,"date":"2011-09-26T23:19:54","date_gmt":"2011-09-27T04:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/?p=7772"},"modified":"2011-09-26T23:19:54","modified_gmt":"2011-09-27T04:19:54","slug":"nightstand-september-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2011\/20110926-7772.htm","title":{"rendered":"Nightstand (September 2011)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I am happy to announce that I read everything I showed you in my picture last month (except for the books I own which are still in progress.) I pretty much never do that.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/nightstand2.jpg\" alt=\"Books in progress\" height=\"200\" \/><img src=\"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/nightstand3.jpg\" alt=\"Books in the wings\"  height=\"200\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>Adult Fiction<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Delusion<\/em> by Peter Abrahams<\/strong><br \/>\nMy second book by Abrahams, this one actually lived up to the designation &#8220;suspense&#8221;. I enjoyed this tale of a woman whose life unravels when a new bit of evidence releases a man who has years before been convicted of murder on the basis of her testimony.<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Big Girl Small<\/em> by Rachel DeWoskin<\/strong><br \/>\nWhen I <a href=\"blog\/2011\/20110915-7775.htm\">reviewed <i>Big Girl Small<\/i><\/a> earlier this month, I couldn&#8217;t decide whether or not to recommend this book about a teenaged little person who finds herself the topic of a national scandal. It&#8217;s got some <i>very<\/i> mature content&#8211;and I&#8217;m not sure that the good is enough to outweigh the bad.<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Job&#8217;s Niece<\/em> by Grace Livingston Hill<\/strong><br \/>\nThe least romantic GLH I&#8217;ve read so far. Included a very interesting page on dispensationalism. Yes, Carrie, I <i>do<\/i> enjoy these-and it is somewhat incongruous.<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>The Birthright<\/em> and <em>The Distant Beacon<\/em> by Janette Oke and T. Davis Bunn<\/strong><br \/>\nI&#8217;m almost done with my library&#8217;s collection of Janette Oke&#8211;this is the last series (I think). I&#8217;ve been enjoying the series, but I&#8217;ll be glad to be done.<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Amy Inspired<\/em> by Bethany Pierce<\/strong><br \/>\nSherry gave a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.semicolonblog.com\/?p=14300\" target=\"_blank\">rave review<\/a>, Barbara a <a href=\"http:\/\/barbarah.wordpress.com\/2011\/09\/22\/book-review-amy-inspired\/\" target=\"_blank\">rather more subdued one<\/a>. I <a href=\"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2011\/20110926-7896.htm\">agreed with both<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Adult Non-fiction<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Dave Barry Turns 40<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\nI&#8217;ve gotta be almost done with Dave Barry&#8217;s 817s. Gotta.<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Cats of Africa<\/em> by Bosman and Hall-Martin<\/strong><br \/>\nLovely paintings and drawings by Bosman, interesting text by Hall-Martin. It&#8217;s a coffee-table type book, but stuffed full of information about the 10 species of cats found in Africa: the cheetah, the leopard, the lion, the caracal, the serval, the black-footed cat, the African wild cat, the swamp cat, the sand cat, and the African golden cat.<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Beaten, Seared, and Sauced<\/em> by Jonathon Dixon<\/strong><br \/>\nA project memoir focused around the author&#8217;s chef&#8217;s training at the Culinary Institute of America. Reviewed <a href=\"\/blog\/2011\/20110913-7770.htm\">here<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>What&#8217;s So Great About Christianity?<\/em> by Dinesh D&#8217;Souza<\/strong><br \/>\nDefinitely a fascinating defense of Christianity. I&#8217;ve excerpted liberally in the following posts: <a href=\"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2011\/20110912-7783.htm\">The Future of Christianity<\/a>, <a href=\"\/blog\/2011\/20110916-7791.htm\">Christianity and the West<\/a>, and <a href=\"blog\/2011\/20110923-7799.htm\">Christianity and Science<\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Spousonomics<\/em> by Szuchman and Anderson<\/strong><br \/>\nAn absolutely fascinating book applying the principles of economics to marriage. A single woman, I&#8217;m not the target audience for this book. But I laughed my way through (Szuchman and Anderson are <i>hilarious<\/i>)&#8211;and even ended up applying my new-found knowledge of loss aversion to my computer-building trials.<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>American Spartans: the US Marines in combat from Iwo Jima to Iraq<\/em> by James A. Warren, read by Dick Hill<\/strong><br \/>\nA fascinating history of the modern corps. I was rather amazed at the Corps&#8217; ability to adapt to the wide variety of combat conditions they&#8217;ve faced throughout the past century. I was also rather amused at how the reader&#8217;s &#8220;Marine quoting&#8221; voice was gruff with a Southern accent.<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>The Art of Simple Food<\/em> by Alice Waters<\/strong><br \/>\nI may pick this cookbook up again when I have more time to spend cooking. For now, the only recipe I used from this book was a chicken salad. I chose it because its instructions read: &#8220;First, make a mayonnaise.&#8221; Those instructions were definitely not for a beginner. The end result was rather blah, but I&#8217;m not sure if that wasn&#8217;t my fault since my mayonnaise broke and I had to mix in an additional egg yolk to get it to re-emulsify. Like I said, I might have to pick this book up again to see if it&#8217;s <i>actually<\/i> any good. <\/li>\n<li><strong><em>There Must Be More than This<\/em> by Judith Wright<\/strong><br \/>\nShould have been titled &#8220;There must be more than this book&#8221;. Wright tries to teach people how to live a life of &#8220;more&#8221; by getting rid of their &#8220;soft addictions&#8221;, but her formless &#8220;more&#8221; leaves something lacking. True fulfillment can only be found in Christ. All other quests for &#8220;more&#8221; fall short.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Juvenile Non-Fiction<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>The Holocaust Heroes<\/em> by David K. Freman<\/strong><br \/>\nAnother title in the Holocaust Library series. Not sure whether they&#8217;re getting less good as I read more or whether it&#8217;s just the repetition of the same material (within the same series of books) that&#8217;s making me perceive these last couple as not as well written.<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>The Nobel Book of Answers<\/em> edited by Bettina Stiekel<\/strong><br \/>\nA collection of essays by Nobel prize winners. Some are okay, most are vapid, all are patronizing. &#8220;How Do I win the Nobel Prize?&#8221; by Mikhail Gorbachev is a real winner (NOT!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Juvenile Fiction<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Anatopsis<\/em> by Chris Abouzeid<\/strong><br \/>\nI have a full review of this dystopian novel in my notebook. Unfortunately, I haven&#8217;t yet transcribed onto bekahcubed. So, for now, I&#8217;ll say that I give it four stars&#8211;and kudos to the author for writing a non-morally-neutral book with witches and warlocks (and gods and demigods, for that matter.)<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Close to Famous<\/em> by Joan Bauer<\/strong><br \/>\nA great little story about a girl with big dreams and big secret&#8211;and who manages to accomplish big things, with the help of some neighborhood kids and the famous movie star who hides out down the street.<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Pretty Dead<\/em> by Francesca Lia Block<\/strong><br \/>\nIn my handwritten review, I write that of all Block&#8217;s books I&#8217;ve read so far, this is the one I&#8217;m most likely to recommend. Alas, I haven&#8217;t transcribed this review either. Which means I&#8217;ll only warn you that it&#8217;s a vampire novel and, like the rest of Block&#8217;s work, it&#8217;s rather edgy.<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>What I Saw and how I Lied<\/em> by Judy Blundell<\/strong><br \/>\nI gave this YA novel set in post-WWII America <a href=\"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2011\/20110906-7752.htm\">four stars<\/a>, recommending it for more mature and thoughtful audiences because of its weighty subject matter.<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>The Hooded Hawk Mystery<\/em> by Franklin W. Dixon<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Children&#8217;s Books<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Babe Ruth Baseball<\/em> by David A. Adler<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Picture Books Bi-Bl<\/strong><br \/>\nI read a few dozen of these, including the ever-amusing <a href=\"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2011\/20110921-7875.htm\"><em>Chicken Cheeks<\/em> by Michael Blake<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As always, there are still more books in progress or in the wings, preparing to be taken up for the next go-round!<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/20110926-02.jpg\" alt=\"Books on Nightstand\" height=\"200\"  \/><img src=\"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/20110926-03.jpg\" alt=\"Books in travel bag\" height=\"200\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t forget to drop by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.5minutesforbooks.com\/18556\/whats-on-your-nightstand-september-27\/\" target=\"_blank\">5 Minutes 4 Books<\/a> to see what others are reading this month!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.5minutesforbooks.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"What's on Your Nightstand?\" src=\"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/images\/buttons\/nightstand.jpg\" title=\"What's on Your Nightstand?\" class=\"aligncenter\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am happy to announce that I read everything I showed you in my picture last month (except for the books I own which are still in progress.) I pretty much never do that. Adult Fiction Delusion by Peter Abrahams My second book by Abrahams, this one actually lived up to the designation &#8220;suspense&#8221;. I &#8230; <a title=\"Nightstand (September 2011)\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2011\/20110926-7772.htm\">Read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Nightstand (September 2011)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7772"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7772\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}